Recent News

• US office owners face $117bn wall of debt repayments (January 2024, Financial Times)
• COVID relief fraud fueled spike in US house prices, report says (July 2023, Fox Business)
• UT researchers say PPP loan fraud inflated home prices (July 2023, Fox 26 Houston)
• Fraudulent Covid Aid Drove Up U.S. House Prices, Report Says (June 2023, WSJ)
• ‘Enormously costly’ business loan fraud drove inflation in home prices in certain markets, research suggests (June 2023, CNBC)
• At least $200 billion in pandemic aid potentially went to fraudsters, federal watchdog estimates (June 2023, NPR)
• The Great Grift: More than $200 billion in Covid-19 aid may have been stolen, federal watchdog says (June 2023, AP News)
• Editorial: Gaming the system (July 2023, Arkansas Democrat Gazette)
• Swindlers Used Barbie Dolls to Rob COVID Relief Program (June 2023, The Messenger)

Research Profile

• This Texas Finance Professor Sifts Data for Signs of Rigged Markets (October 2018, Bloomberg)
• Podcast – Finding Fraud with John Griffin (October 2021, Salem Center at McCombs School of Business)

Paycheck Protection Program and FinTech

• 15% of Paycheck Protection Program Loans Could Be Fraudulent, Study Shows (August 2021, New York Times)
• Fintechs Found to Be Much More Likely to OK Suspicious PPP Loans (August 2021, Bloomberg)
• Online financial companies’ processes facilitated fraud in PPP loans, Texas university study finds (August 2021, USA Today)
• Fox news segment on PPP fraud (December 2022, Fox News)
• Pandemic relief fraud report says online financial company CEOs, family got rich (December 2022, USA Today)
• New Select Subcommittee Report Reveals How Fintech Companies Facilitated Fraud In The Paycheck Protection Program (December 2022, House of Representatives)

Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS)

• Commercial Properties’ Ability to Repay Mortgages Was Overstated, Study Finds (August 2020, Wall Street Journal)
• Wall Street’s Cooked Books Fueled the Financial Crisis in 2008. It’s Happening Again. (April 2021, The Intercept)
• The Kushners’ Freddie Mac Loan Wasn’t Just Massive. It Came With Unusually Good Terms, Too. (October 2020, ProPublica)

Credit Ratings and Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs)

• CLOs May Be Riskier Than What Ratings Suggest, New Study Finds (October 2020, Bloomberg)
• The Looming Bank Collapse (June 2020, The Atlantic)
• Financial Engineering Made Risky Loans Seem Safe. Now They Face a Huge Test. (March 2020, Wall Street Journal)

Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets

• Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated, Fueling Skyrocketing Value, Researchers Say (June 2018, New York Times)
• Large Bitcoin Player Manipulated Price Sharply Higher, Study Says (November 2019, Wall Street Journal)
• Podcast – Bitcoin Comes Untethered (November 2019, Wall Street Journal)
• Bitcoin’s astronomical rise last year was buoyed by market manipulation, researchers say (June 2018, Washington Post)
• Has bitcoin come to the end of its Tether? (June 2018, Financial Times)
• A Lone Bitcoin Whale Likely Fueled 2017 Surge, Study Finds (November 2019, Bloomberg)
• The World’s Most-Used Cryptocurrency Isn’t Bitcoin (September 2019, Bloomberg)
• On Crypto Exchanges, the Trades Don’t Always Add Up (July 2019, Bloomberg)
• Tether Used to Manipulate Price of Bitcoin During 2017 Peak: New Study (June 2018, Bloomberg)
• Cryptocurrency tether used to boost bitcoin prices, study finds (June 2018, Reuters)
• A single anonymous market manipulator caused bitcoin to top $20,000 two years ago, study shows (November 2019, CNBC)

Market Manipulation

• Regulator Looks Into Alleged Manipulation of VIX, Wall Street’s ‘Fear Index’ (February 2018, Wall Street Journal)
• Does the VIX Need Fixing? Sure Looks That Way (May 2018, Bloomberg)
• VIX Trading, Hoaxes and Blockchain (May 2018, Bloomberg Opinion)
• VIX Misbehavior Leads Exchange to Fine Trader $1.28 Million (February 2018, Wall Street Journal)
• VIX: Wall Street ‘fear gauge’ – manipulated or maligned? (September 2018, Reuters)
• Is the VIX Being Gamed? A Sudden Swoon Has Traders Talking Again (January 2018, Bloomberg)

Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS)

• Fraud Revealed as Key to Financial Crash (December 2020, McCombs School of Business)
• Loose Credit Led to Housing Price Bust (July 2020, McCombs School of Business)
• Mortgage Bankers and Hedge-Fund Revivals (May 2017, Bloomberg)
• The Bankers Behind the Financial Crisis Actually Got Promoted (June 2017, Vice)

Op-Ed

• Coronavirus bailout for airlines and cruise lines is socialism for the undeserving rich (March 2020, USA Today)

Other Media

• Hedge Funds Drawn to Crypto’s Next Big Short After FTX Reveals Cracks (December 2022, Bloomberg)
• FTX Bankruptcy Bombshells Squeeze Crypto Lenders Behind Bull Run (November 2022, Bloomberg)
• Study Asks Why Prices Are All Over the Lot (August 2022, Bloomberg)
• Muni Market Transaction Costs Remain High, Despite Customer Protection Rules, Study Says (August 2022, Wall Street Journal)
• Testimony before congress regarding fintech and transparency in small business lending (July 2022)
• $4.4 Billion EOS Token Raise Fueled by Wash Trading, Says New Research (September 2021, Decrypt)
• Crypto Exchanges Have a Plan to Beat Binance: Play by the Rules (July 2021, Bloomberg)
• Is Bitcoin Safe? (February 2021, Money)
• Behind the Bitcoin Bubble (January 2021, Wall Street Journal Opinion)
• The Tether Controversy: A Brief History (January 2021, Decrypt)
• How a Japanese Rice Farmer Got Tangled Up in the Hertz Bankruptcy (November 2020, Wall Street Journal)
• Bitcoin Gains Ground on Gold, Bolsters Claim as the Asset of Tomorrow (May 2020, Cointelegraph)
• Controversial Crypto Coin Tether Gains Popularity at Gambling Sites, Pot Shops (October 2019, Bloomberg)
• Bitcoin prices have been manipulated, study says (June 2018, CNN)
• What If Bitcoin, Crypto Prices Are Being Manipulated? (June 2018, Forbes)
• Bitcoin whales get bigger, threatening price swings (December 2019, Los Angeles Times)
• The Real Reason Behind Bitcoin’s Epic Rally Revealed? (November 2019, Forbes)
• Who are the bamboozlers manipulating the cost of bitcoin now? (November 2019, New York Post)
• Bitcoin’s Record Price Surge of 2017 Caused by a Single Person, Study Claims (November 2019, The Independent)
• Mysterious Bitcoin Player Manipulated Cryptocurrency to Historic $326 Billion Market Value, Study Claims (November 2019, Newsweek)
• Bitcoin’s bubble was the result of one big player: Study (November 2019, Fox Business)
• Crypto Coin With $21 Billion in Daily Volume Sparks Regulator Concerns (October 2019, Investopedia)
• CryptoKitties Ran Wild on Ethereum First. Now Tether Is Clogging the Digital Ledger (October 2019, Fortune)
• Cheating in Marriage May Mean Cheating at Work (October 2019, Psych Central)
• Tether, not Libra, may be the cryptocurrency behind bitcoin’s surge (June 2019, Quartz)
• Crypto Exchanges Suffering Major Outflows Even As Bitcoin Soars (June 2019, Investopedia)
• Tether Says Stablecoin is only Backed by 74 Cash Securities (April 2019, Bloomberg)
• As bitcoin nosedives, regulators said to be investigating whether it was propped up illegally (November 2018, CNBC)
• Crypto Coin Tether Defies Logic on Kraken’s Market, Raising Red Flags (June 2018, Bloomberg)
• CEOs Who Cheat in Bedroom Will Cheat in Boardroom, Study Shows (October 2018, Bloomberg)
• Much of bitcoin’s 2017 boom was market manipulation, research says (June 2018, CNBC)
• Whistleblower alleges manipulation of Cboe volatility index (February 2018, Reuters)
• Bitcoin prices have been manipulated, study says (June 2018, CNN)
• What If Bitcoin, Crypto Prices Are Being Manipulated? (June 2018, Forbes)
• Bitcoin’s price has been manipulated with another cryptocurrency: tether, professor says (June 2018, Los Angeles Times)
• Bitcoin prices were manipulated: study (June 2018, The Hill)
• CRYPTO: From VIX to bitcoin—a story of market manipulation (June 2018, Yahoo Finance)
• Tether Manipulation Pushed Up Bitcoin’s Price, Researchers Find (June 2018, CoinDesk)
• Bitcoin Frauds Keep Growing (June 2018, Naked Capitalism)
• Bitcoin Price Manipulation Fueled Top Cryptocurrency’s 2017 Rally: Report (June 2018, The Inquisitr)
• Is Bitcoin Going to Zero? (June 2018, Yahoo Finance)
• ‘The mother of all crypto scams’: Bitcoin’s price manipulated during ‘meteoric rise’, researchers find (June 2018, News.com AU)
• Bitcoin’s astronomical rise last year could be buoyed by market manipulation, researchers say (June 2018, Spokesman Review)
• The hunt for bitcoin market manipulation is gaining momentum (June 2018, Quartz)
• Crypto Extend Losses Amid Reports That Bitcoin Prices Was Manipulated During 2017 (June 2018, Investing.com)
• Research Says Bitcoin’s Rise Caused By Market Manipulation (June 2018, BroBible)
• Bitcoin’s record-high 2017 price was result of market manipulation, claims study (June 2018, TechSpot)
• Bitcoin price analysis: BTC/USD recovers from Wednesday’s lows; the crypto bubble might have been engineered, research shows (June 2018, FX Street)
• New Research Shows Bitcoin’s Meteoric Rise Was a Scam (June 2018, San Antonio Express)
• Bitcoin Today: Prices Attempt to Rally Following Early Weakness (June 2018, The Street)
• Was bitcoin’s rise built on a lie? (June 2018, PitchBook)
• Bitcoin is slipping after a study found signs its 2017 bull run was driven by market manipulation (June 2018, Markets Insider)
• Bitcoin’s Atmospheric Rise Might Have Been Tied To Tether (June 2018, PYMENTS)
• Bitcoin is slipping after study claims its 2017 bull run was driven by market manipulation (June 2018, Business Insider)
• Report: The bitcoin boom may have been caused by price manipulation (June 2018, Fast Company)
• Bitcoin Prices Are Falling Again. Here’s What’s Behind the Latest Plunge (June 2018, Money)
• Bitcoin prices manipulated, says study (June 2018, Whistleblower Online)
• Is Bitcoin a SCAM? Cryptocurrency’s huge price spike last year was caused by massive ‘market manipulation’, claims study (June 2018, Daily Mail UK)
• Bitcoin’s 2017 Surge Was the Result of Manipulation, Experts Say (June 2018, Futurism)
• Bitcoin’s record price was artificially manipulated, research claims (June 2018, New York Post)
• Bitcoin’s price was artificially inflated last year, researchers say (June 2018, Toronto Star)
• Remember how Bitcoin’s value soared in 2017? Most of it was market manipulation: study (June 2018, Global News)
• New Research Shows Bitcoin’s Meteoric Rise Was a Scam (June 2018, The Entrepreneur) 
• Bitcoin’s price was artificially inflated last year, researchers say (June 2018, Boston Globe)
• Bitcoin’s rise might be linked to price manipulation, study indicates (June 2018, The Verge)
• Market manipulation was key factor in Bitcoin’s bull run, researchers say (June 2018, The Next Web)
• Academics Claim Tether Used to Pump the Price of Bitcoin on the Bitfinex Exchange (June 2018, Crowdfund Insider)
• US researchers claim bitcoin’s price was manipulated during 2017 spike (June 2018, Silicon Republic)
• New Research Claims Bitcoin Price was Manipulated using Tether (June 2018, News BTC)
• Crypto Collapse Accelerates As Bitcoin Miners Turn Cashflow Negative (June 2018, Zero Hedge)
• Bitcoin’s price was artificially inflated last year, researchers say (June 2018, San Francisco Gate)
• Bitcoin prices have been manipulated, study says (June 2018, Channel3000)
• How S&P 500 options may be used to manipulate VIX ‘fear gauge’ (June 2017, MarketWatch Opinion)
• Study: Top Bankers Suffered No Career Penalties Since Financial Crisis (June 2017, Vocativ)